Return to Transcripts main page

New Day

Chattanooga Gunman's Possible Links to Terrorist Organizations Investigated; Interview with Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke; President Visits a Federal Prison. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired July 17, 2015 - 08:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[08:00:00] BILL KILLIAN, U.S. ATTORNEY: -- at this juncture there are no safety concerns for the general public.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: In a press conference overnight the Department of Justice and FBI reassuring the public they believe 24- year-old Mohammad Youssuf Abdulazeez acted alone in his shooting rampage Thursday morning Abdulazeez carrying out the deadly attack on the final day of Ramadan, though officials are still investigating his possible motive.

ED REINHOLD, FBI SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE: At this point we don't have anything that directly ties him to an international terrorist organization.

SANCHEZ: Targeting U.S. military personnel, Abdulazeez first headed towards Chattanooga, Tennessee's military recruitment center, driving by and shooting out the window.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was one shot and then it was endless shots one after another, just unloading.

SANCHEZ: Then the again man headed seven miles away to a Navy operational support center where he rammed into the front gate. According to law enforcement officials briefed on the investigation, it was a harrowing gunfight since Abdulazeez had so much ammunition. Another source says he was strapped with several weapons, including an AK-47 style gun and packed 30 round magazines. In the end he killed four marines and wounded three others before police shot and killed him.

SEN. BOB CORKER, (R) TENNESSEE: Our nation mourns the senseless loss of four of our nation's heroes.

SANCHEZ: Asking her be blurred for her safety, an unidentified relative of the gunman tells affiliate KPRC the family can't even process what happened.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We were shocked like everybody else in this nation.

SANCHEZ: Abdulazeez is described as a devoted Muslim and a trained mixed martial artist. You can see him here fighting in a video from 2009. ALMIR DIZDAREVIC, A FRIEND AND FORMER MIXED MARTIAL ARTS COACH: Every time he talked to me he shook my hand. He was smiling, he was courteous, he was polite, never raised his voice.

SANCHEZ: A friend and former MMA coach saw the shooter about a month ago. He says Abdulazeez recently traveled to either Jordan or Yemen for a period of time in the past two years. He was supposedly teaching children wrestling.

DIZDAREVIC: I asked his dad, where is Mohammad? I haven't seen him in a while. He said he moved back home. But I saw him a couple of times when he visited.

SANCHEZ: This as Abdulazeez's high school yearbook photo surfaces along with a quote now laden with the heavy weight of his actions, "My name causes national security alerts. What does yours do?"

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: Of that yearbook quote taken about six years ago, his friends, again, say he was a jokester, so they believe it was his sense of humor. Alisyn?

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: OK, Boris, thanks for all that background.

So the FBI is leading a terrorism taskforce investigating the Tennessee gunman. For more on what authorities know about his travels and his online posts, let's get to CNN justice correspondent Pamela Brown. What are they saying, Pam?

PAMELA BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: For right now the FBI is treating this as a terrorism investigation. But authorities still haven't pinpointed a specific motive here. We're being told though sources that law enforcement at this point in the investigation is unaware that the shooter made any religious utterances such as "Allahu Akbar" or had any outward manifestation that he was acting on behalf of a terrorist organization.

So the investigation is still very active, but here's what we know about the shooter. He's 24 years old. His name is Mohammad Youssuf Abdulazeez. He graduated from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, so he lived near where the shootings happened. He had an engineering degree. He graduated in 2012.

And this is important. He was not on the FBI's radar. This isn't someone they had been aware of. He wasn't in any U.S. terrorist databases. The only run-ins with the law that we're aware of that he had was back in April recently for a DUI. We've learned that he was born in Kuwait as a Jordanian citizen. After college, as we learned from Boris Sanchez, he went overseas to the Middle East according to a friend who was also his wrestling coach. He went to either Jordan or Yemen, we're told.

He also wrote a blog recently in the days leading up to the shooting. There weren't any references to violence or anything like that that we found. Here's a quote that we pulled from his blog. He talks about his Muslim faith, religious teaching, and this quote in particular he says "Don't be fooled by your desires. This life is short and bitter and the opportunity to submit to Allah may pass you way. Take his word as your light and code and do not let prisoners whether they are so called scholars or even your family members, divert you from the truth."

We're being told from sources he increasingly when to the mosque. Recently he more frequently went there. He began growing a beard in the past couple of months. But take a look at this new picture that we just obtained. This is the shooter from his days at the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga. I spoke to a friend who knew him back then. He said he was a very normal guy. There was nothing out of the ordinary. He was very friendly, always quick to smile.

So this new picture showing him during his college days. His family says he is a devout Muslim. But there were no signs that he was radical. What makes this so alarming to law enforcement is that this was someone who wasn't on their radar and he was able to launch a relatively unsophisticated attack. That is what has been the big concern all along, the unknown, and it looks like that's what we have in this case. Back to you.

[08:05:10] CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: All right, so obviously there is a fascination about why, but the emphasis should be on the lives that were lost. And little has been released about the four U.S. marines killed in Tennessee, deference being given to the families, and rightly so. One of the families has put out word about their lost loved one, and CNN's senior Washington correspondent Joe Johns in Washington with more on that. What do we know, Joe?

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Chris, of those four U.S. marines killed in these two attacks on military locations, as yet only one of those individual has been publicly identified. He is marine gunnery sergeant Thomas Sullivan. He's 40 years old. He's reported to be an Iraq war veteran, a Purple Heart recipient. There are reports he's worked in the past as a marine recruiter.

The names of the other marines killed have yet to be released. We also do not know the names of the three individual who were injured but survived.

The official reaction to the shootings has been measured, though the Department of Homeland Security has said it is enhancing the security posture at certain installations out of abundance of caution. The president for his part expressed the condolences of the federal government to the victims and their families. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It is a heartbreaking circumstance for these individuals who have served our country with great valor to be killed in this fashion. I speak for the American people in expressing our deepest condolences.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHNS: Meanwhile, the investigation keeps going. Federal officials say the case continues to be treated as an act of terrorism at least until terrorism is ruled out. Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: All right, Joe, thanks for all of that.

We want to bring in now the mayor of Chattanooga, Andy Berke. Mayor Berke, we're so sorry for the tragedy that your city is enduring this morning.

ANDY BERKE, MAYOR, CHATTANOOGA, TENNESSEE: Thanks. We have a proud tradition with our military. We're called the volunteer state for a reason. We spend time with the families of military on a regular basis, not just in times of tragedy. And so I know everybody went to sleep last night with their hearts a little bit broken.

CAMEROTA: We here of course have to focus a bit on the horror of what happened. But I know for the past 28 hours you have been focused on the heroism. Can you tell us more about that?

BERKE: Yes. You know, when I went out to the police services center yesterday afternoon, immediately you start hearing tales of what happened. Essentially, this deranged individual went to two different locations with the intent of killing people who proudly serve our country. They were unarmed.

And because our officers went in valiantly and heroically, they were able to limit the damage as much as possible. This person went in, shot an incredible number of rounds, but he was unable to do so in the same focused way because we actually engaged him even as he was -- even before he got to the second location. And I tell you, one tale after another of people engaging this individual even as bullets were whizzing by their heads looking out for fellow officers, making sure their training was kicking in, it's really something to hear.

CAMEROTA: That is so courageous and so important to hear that aspect of the story. I want to talk about the shooter for a second. He was born in Kuwait but then he arrived, as I think an adolescent, maybe even sooner, here in a Chattanooga suburb. He by all accounts had a standard American upbringing here. He went to high school, he had friends, as we can see in these pictures. He was involved in sports. What do you know thus far about how he became radicalized?

BERKE: I think we're looking into every bit of his background. All of our resources from the Chattanooga Police Department and the Hamilton County police department is spent right now being cooperative with the FBI and the ATF because we want to know everything that was involved in the days and months leading up to yesterday.

We're going to keep putting the pieces together. Obviously the local component is important, but I can also tell you that law enforcement is not solely focused on the local part. They are examining what his connections were anywhere and everywhere.

CAMEROTA: Do you know if he was on the radar of any local authorities? BERKE: He was not as far as we know. Much of that information that

involves terrorism we get from the federal government.

[08:10:00] And we certainly didn't have any indication that he was a threat or that yesterday something was going to happen.

CAMEROTA: Mayor, does your city have a problem with radicalization or extremism?

BERKE: We've seen no issues today or in the past. In fact yesterday the local Muslim community issued a very strong statement against what had happened. And many of these individual knew the shooter. As far as we know, everyone in the community here is outraged by yesterday's shooting and has expressed nothing but their deepest and sincere regrets.

CAMEROTA: President Obama talked about what a loss it is to lose these marines. And I know that he called you. Can you share that conversation?

BERKE: I spoke to the White House several times yesterday. I did not speak to the president, but I spoke to the White House and high ranking official there on several different occasions. Even during my press conference yesterday, I got out of the press conference and there were three or four different missed calls from the White House. They are just very in tune to what was going on here from the first minute and really wanted to make sure they were getting all the most up to date information.

CAMEROTA: Mayor, we don't know much about the victim this is morning. What can you share?

BERKE: There's really not much more than I can share. The Department of Defense is doing most of that. What I can tell you is there is another person who served our country who is still in the hospital in very serious condition. We should all be thinking of her. In addition, one police officer was shot and is still in the hospital. And I think for me, I got to spend a little time at the hospital with some of the victims and their families. And we need to remember that there were a lot of victims yesterday and certainly we need to support all of the families.

CAMEROTA: Mayor Andy Berke we know you have a long day ahead of you. Thanks for making time for NEW DAY. Again, our condolences to what's happened in Chattanooga.

BERKE: Thank you.

CUOMO: All right, Alisyn, we have development in another big story. The jury took 12 hours and convicted Colorado movie theater gunman James Holmes of killing 12 people, wounding 70. But the jury's job is not over. Next week beginning Wednesday it will decide whether Holmes should live or die. Jurors rejected the defense claims that Holmes was insane at the time of the shooting.

CAMEROTA: A frank assessment from President Obama. In a groundbreaking visit to a federal prison in Oklahoma, the president said that he himself could have ended up behind bars. What did he say that made all the difference? CNN's Sunlen Serfaty is live at the White House. Tell us more about this visit, Sunlen.

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Alisyn, the visit really seemed to have an impact on president Obama. He sat down with six inmates who were locked up for nonviolent drug offenses and heard their stories, how they came to be in prison.

He also toured the prison under tight security with the warden, even peeking in at one time to a nine by ten cell block. The president got a little introspective afterwards. He noted that under a different set of circumstances, had it not been for the support of his family, the support of the community, it really could have been him there behind bars instead of here at the White House.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: These are young people who made mistakes that aren't that different than the mistakes I made and the mistakes that a lot of you guys made. The difference is they did not have the kinds of support structures, the second chances, the resources that would allow them to survive those mistakes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SERFATY: And his visit to a federal prison is a first for a sitting president. And it comes as the White House is making a big push to change the criminal justice system, trying to put a little momentum into some emerging bipartisan interests on Capitol Hill in doing so. Chris?

CUOMO: Right. And of course he also has to deal with the Iran deal. We have news on that. A U.N. Security Council vote on that deal set for Monday. In fact it's expected to be ratified. But the vote is coming under fire from Senate leaders here because Congress has yet to weigh in on the agreement. President Obama is set to meet today with the Saudi foreign minister to settle the Iran deal in the face of their serious opposition and concerns for safety.

CAMEROTA: A terrorist group affiliated with ISIS claims it destroyed an Egyptian Navy vessel. The group posting pictured on social media of what it says is a guided missile exploding as it slams into the ship, killing everyone on board. Egypt's military gives a very different account. The say the crew exchanged fire with the terrorists causing a fire onboard that did not result in any fatalities.

CUOMO: Wow, that is some picture, though.

[08:15:00] The sole survivor of a plane crash is speaking out, and what a story she has to tell.

Her name is Autumn Veatch. There she is. She was in a small plane bound for Washington state last weekend. It slammed into a mountain. The aircraft just erupted in a ball of flames. Both her stepparents, step-grandparents, rather, killed.

The 16-year-old who was badly burned said she did try in vain to save them both, but it was too late. Here are her words.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AUTUMN VEATCH, PLANE CRASH SURVIVOR: There was a lot of fire and I am a small person. And that's what happened to my hand. I was trying to pull them out, but there was a point where it was like, well -- it's just not happening.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Gosh, that's amazing that she looks as good as she does there, and sounds as composed as she does there.

Meanwhile, severe weather slamming Illinois. Check out this tornado, you'll see it here touching down near Monmouth. The huge twister turning up everything in its path.

That same storm system spawning this tornado in the town of Kirkwood, Illinois, and nearby in Cameron, Illinois, damage from that storm was extensive. Many parts of the town unreachable this morning because of the downed power lines and all of the damage.

CUOMO: I put them first on the scariest things that nature brings our way.

CAMEROTA: Tornadoes?

CUOMO: Yes. Hurricanes are terrible also, typhoons, cyclones, all these things, and they fall to some of the same categories. But the -- when you have the tornado coming toward you, you feel energy being brought in toward this thing. And you see things that are rooted just all of a sudden pop up in the air and just disappear, big trees, tops of houses.

It's amazing that people make it through those on a regular basis. It's part of their lives in parts of the country.

CAMEROTA: It all seems scary to me. I haven't done the exercise of what's the most scary, but it all seems --

CUOMO: Well, next time.

CAMEROTA: OK.

CUOMO: You can have it.

CAMEROTA: It's sure to be fun. We'll do that.

(CROSSTALK)

CAMEROTA: Game during commercial breaks.

Meanwhile, we are taking a closer look at the gunman responsible for killing four marines in Tennessee. Why did he do it? Was he on anyone's radar? Was he inspired by radical Islam?

More when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:20:44] CUOMO: Investigators, of course, have identified the gunman behind the attack in Tennessee Thursday. The big question is, why? What happened to this guy that made him want to do something so terrible? Is this about ISIS or radical Islam? It is being investigated as terrorism.

CAMEROTA: So, let's bring in our CNN national security analyst and former Homeland Security assistant secretary, Juliette Kayyem, and FBI special agent and former police officer, Jonathan Gilliam.

Great to have both of you.

Juliette, I know you think that the scariest element of this other than the heinous crime is that he doesn't appear to have been on any terror watch list or anybody's radar.

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: So far, that's what we're hearing. It's not a single one.

And you have to -- these lists are long. TIDE, one of the major lists the government uses is over a million names, just people who may have been in the wrong place at the wrong time or have friends were affiliated with terrorist groups. So, this is new in the sense that he never did anything, not even sort of public statements on social media to trigger what would be sort of a primary investigation.

CAMEROTA: So, maybe this is just called violent crime. Maybe he wasn't triggered by terrorism. Maybe this is called violent crime.

KAYYEM: We don't know. I think we just have to be patient. This is going to be discovered in the next couple days. So, we can -- and for investigators, what they want to do is get it right. So, they don't care what we call it at this stage. They just want to get it right.

Look, there's a lot of evidence to suggest that he was radicalized somehow. And we need to answer what somehow is and be cognizant that if it was through social media or it was through his travels, that those are very different pieces of the puzzle.

But, right now, look, this is just a couple days away from knowing the answers.

CUOMO: Three things: one, categorizing it as a terrorism investigation is about marshalling of assets. Two, picking the targets that were picked is highly suggestive of intent. And three would be, electronic footprint that will come quickly. You're right.

This trip back home to Yemen or wherever he went there to supposedly wrestle, that has to be a big focus for them, right, Mike, about exactly why he went, what he was going there. For the father to just say, oh he moved back home, doesn't seem to be the end of the story. JONATHAN GILLIAM, FORMER FBI SPECIAL AGENT: Well, this seems to be a

repetitive thing as well. We do get with people that are radicalizes that, they -- a lot of the times, they take a trip somewhere. People need to realize about we're looking at here, is that we're looking at a religion. And in every religion, you have people that are inspired throughout their time when they learned something, they got somewhere and they get inspired.

This is always going to exist in Islam, no matter what, because they're getting inspired by the fundamental aspects of Islam. Now, what happens is they get recruited by people. We call them radicalized. They're actually looking back at a lot of the tactics, techniques and procedures that were carried out a 1,400 years. So, what happens is when they go take these travels, they may see something, he could have already had it in his heart before by looking at things online.

I think the biggest thing that we have to look at now is where people used to be sought out to recruit, now people are actually seeking out the information themselves, because again, like everything else, it's all over TV. And so, maybe they're inspired, you know, because they're at that point in their life where they're energized by the religion.

CAMEROTA: And, Juliette, that's what's so deeply disturbing, is that if there turns out to be no electronic fingerprint on this, then if nobody outside radicalizing, we do not know yet, then it's just one person -- I mean, this is what everyone fears. This is the -- and you know, it's strange to think that a military site is a soft target. But these were soft targets.

KAYYEM: Very soft target.

CAMEROTA: And we have millions of them.

KAYYEM: Yes. I mean, the idea that we're going to end, we need to sort of arm all soft targets is ridiculous, once you harden a soft target, they'll find another soft target, right? The idea that we can just fortress ourselves against this kind of threat is ridiculous.

What we need is, you know, communities to be engaged, family members to be engaged. You know, in Boston, just last week, we had the police officer father who was a father, someone who said something's going on with my son.

CUOMO: Right, somebody knows something about somebody when they go this wayward.

KAYYEM: Buying up the weapon.

CUOMO: That's exactly right. So, you have the weapons, although, you know, we're dealing a lot with it online this morning. It is not that hard to get an AK-47 in America. It sounds like it would be, but it isn't. Nor is it to get those 30-round clips, the magazine.

[08:25:02] So, the further complication I want you to take on is Yemen. Let's say that's where he was. There's no government formatively there right now. There's nobody to really work with to get answers.

So, what do you do on the investigation there?

GILLIAM: Well, we did have people in place in Yemen. I'm sure we still do have sources over there.

CUOMO: It's almost outright civil war, Houthis and everything going on.

GILLIAM: It's outright civil war.

One thing that's very important for everybody to realize is that we hear these things like we're war weary. We don't want to go back. It's not our fight.

We do these fights that are overseas do have consequences on what happens here. You know, there are recruiters that are coming from Yemen. There are people that go and end up in Yemen. Just like Syria, they get hardened in their battle tactics, and they come back as a force multiplier to teach other people.

This guy literally is the perfect storm of terrorism because he was not on a list. And everybody acts surprised, but listen, we don't everybody that wants to attack on a list. And maybe he was trained possibly by somebody who did go over and came back.

KAYYEM: Can I say something about the Yemen thing?

I would like to wait just from my background, I'd like to wait for government confirmation on that. I know we've got it from friend and others. The reason why is I find it hard to believe that an American citizen who goes to Yemen for a while and comes back is not on a list. Let's just say we're pretty sophisticated in that regard.

(CROSSTALK)

CAMEROTA: A man travels to Yemen and comes back should be flagged at an airport?

KAYYEM: At least -- yes, oh, yes, definitely because no one's going to Yemen right now.

(CROSSTALK)

CAMEROTA: Are they questioned?

KAYYEM: No. But he would have appeared -- his travel would have appeared on some government source, right? And so, whether it would have lead to investigation or not, we don't know. But I would like government confirmation of this trip to Yemen because Americans don't go to Yemen right now. I mean, there's so few of them.

CAMEROTA: Sure. But I guess my point is, if it's flagged that he went to Yemen but there's no follow-up, then what does it matter? KAYYEM: Well, because at least he would have been -- we would know

right now that he had been in Yemen for some period of time and we're not getting confirmation on that. That's why I'd been a little bit weary on that piece of evidence.

CAMEROTA: I see. After the fact it helps, but it doesn't help preventatively before the fact.

KAYYEM: Like, I mean, how many Americans are going to Yemen right now? I mean, none.

CAMEROTA: Great point.

GILLIAM: There's a couple --

CAMEROTA: Quickly.

GILLIAM: Real quick, two things I want to point out. One is gun control does not stop bad people from getting guns. That's never going to happen.

The other thing is, is that we need to start looking at targets like recruiting depots that are stuck in strip malls. You're taking two soft targets, combining them. We need to start rethinking that. The DOD set a bad example this weekend.

CAMEROTA: Jonathan, Juliette, thanks so much for all of your expertise.

GILLIAM: You got it.

CAMEROTA: All right. Meanwhile, on a much, much, lighter note --

COUMO: And we can use one. It's Friday.

CAMEROTA: OK. Let's do that, Academy Award winner Michael Douglas is in a big summer movie about a small super pest but it's actually a superhero.

CUOMO: Right. Why did you call them a pest them?

CAMEROTA: I don't know why I called him a pest.

CUOMO: Well, you just did and I think you're going to have to account.

CAMEROTA: I'm going to apologize to Michael Douglas when he's here.

CUOMO: What about Ant-Man?

CAMEROTA: Of Ant-Man.

CUOMO: You just called him a pest.

CAMEROTA: All right. I'll apologize to him as well.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)